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Thursday, 24 April 2014

Quick Note: Apologies for the delay in getting this up - this was due to me losing my phone. For a change I had taken a LOT of photos of games... Typical right? I took some time to try and find it - probably a bad thing I was more worried about losing the pictures than the annoying impact on work... So, instead I have cobbled together some random photos off Twitter and the like, and some random ones that have nothing to do with me, for the hell of it. So, once again, sorry about the delay.

So… Its
been and gone. The Big Show. The Main Event of the Evening. The South Coast
Grand Tournament 2014.

190ish
players, 6 rounds, basically no comp – something spiritually clean about the
whole thing (well, apart from that bit outside where someone was sick, that’s
not too clean, but still, the overall point remains).

Several
questions were posed and asked at this event. Is uncomped Warhammer utterly
unsuitable to competitive play? Just how important will comp scores be? Will
every person with cannons choose battle for the pass? Can someone drunk enough
to lick vodka jelly from another man’s beard win the biggest event in the UK?

And all
those were answered.

For
those asking, my list was as follows:

Slann,
BSB, Channeling Staff, Harmonic Convergence, Life Magic

Old
Blood, cold one, great weapon, Dragonhelm

Tetto’ekko

Priest,
dispel scroll, lore of beasts

Scar
Vet, cold one, great weapon, Armour of Destiny

Scar
Vet, cold one, great weapon, Armour of Fortune, Dragonbane Gem

20
Skinks, full command

20
Skinks, full command

22
Skinks, full command

10 Skink
Skirmishers

10 Skink
Skirmishers

10 Skink
Skirmishers, javelins

25
Temple Guard, full command, Razor Banner

5
Chameleon Skinks

5
Chameleon Skinks

Razordon

Comp
Score: 1

So… Yes,
I went old skool. Life magic baby.

The
reasons for this are twofold. Firstly, I see too many elves these days. The one
thing elves do very very well is be immune (or as good as) to death magic. In
this comp pack though, no one was immune to Dwellers. So there.

Furthermore,
I have fallen in love with the power of the life buffs (in tandem with Tett’s
Heavens) on the Temple Guard and Vets.

Oh, and
miscast protection is just good stuff. OK, that’s three reasons – I lied. I’m
sure you’ll get over it.

My new
club, the black-clad South London Legion, had been practicing hard for this event, so I
went in expecting three things – Everqueen White Lions Stars, Dark Elves of the
MSU variety, and MSU Daemons. But only time would tell (spoiler: I did not face
any of these…)

Comp
Scores and Secret Missions

For
those that don’t know, comp points ranged from 0 to 10, and gave you bonuses to
deciding what deployment type to use (either Battle Line, Meeting Engagement or
Battle for the Pass), who deployed first and who went first. They were also the
second tiebreaker – after Secret Missions.

The
missions were:

Control
your deployment zone

Control
your opponent’s deployment zone

Capture
more buildings than your opponent

Kill
more special and rare than your opponent

Keep
your general alive

Kill
your opponent’s general.

Game
1

There is
a singular experience that can only be truly understood by those that play
competitive Warhammer. Some other experiences and hobbies may take you close,
but nothing can *exactly* describe the feeling that settles upon you
when you find out late on Friday night that you have to play Dwarfs tomorrow.
In win/loss/draw. Probably in battle for the pass. It would take Shakespearian
levels of wordsmithery to concoct new words to do the feeling justice.

I’ll
have to settle for suggesting it is a feeling akin to dread or despair, not
dissimilar, in many ways, to the prospect of queuing at the post office.

The
faint glimmer of hope that the new Dwarf book may have breathed fresh life into
the old book was blown away through the exercise of reading it (though, on an
aside, I have to say that I think a big unit of Irondrakes, with funky banners
and character support, could be very good). The new morning heralded a new dawn
(shockingly), however, and when I looked at the army on the table, it was not
what I had feared. It turns out my first round opponent, Paul, is what can only
be described as a Good Man. A warmachine player who has started going to
Warhammer events for fun (I know… I don’t understand why he takes Dwarfs
either), he had a lovely looking army and wanted play – none of this sitting in
a corner or round a belly (hampered here, perhaps, by his athletic frame). He
wanted to fight toe to toe, until only the bloody victor was standing.

As ever
I started off by getting a solid mental picture of what the main
threats/priority targets his list had. In this instance it was clear. Flame
cannons are bad news for Temple Guard, and death incarnate for Skinks. Cannons
are always bad. With just the one there was a decent chance his was flaming,
but allowing him a 1/3 chance to pick on the character with only a 4+ ward was
never going to be a good thing. The Gyrocopter was also a nuisance, yet another
thing that simply likes killing skinks too much to make me comfortable.
Finally, there was the Lord. Not having a clue as to what to expect from him in
combat, I did not want to risk the Temple Guard (and definitely not the characters)
into an early turn combat with him and his retinue.

Paul’s
deployment played into my hands. People always appear to expect lizards to
deploy defensively, which is something I tend to refuse to do – even if at
times it would be the more sensible option.

He put
most of his strength in the centre, his 20 thunderers garrisoning the building
(we did not realise until turn 2 or 3 that buildings were all two story affairs
at the event) flanked by his Ironbreakers and Trollslayers on the 6” line.
Between them was the flame cannon ready to launch liquid death on anyone it
could. His backfield was filled with his other unit, looking to block any
Chameleon scouting goodness. I also deployed high, keeping my Temple Guard just
out of maximum charge range, skink cohorts occupying the 6” line, with a Scar
vet in one directly across from the Flame Cannon. As luck would have it, I got
first turn despite his comp score, and the Scar Vet immediately charged the
flame cannon (later surviving one round of shooting from the bolt thrower
before killing that too and engaging in prolonged combat with thunderers and
Irondrakes).

A number
of skirmishing skinks and chameleons threw themselves into range of the cannon,
and by the end of my first turn his two most potent warmachines were silenced.

The
Trollslayers had deployed behind a wood, and when I found out it was a Venom
Thicket the death-yearning Dwarven losers decided that dying to shrubbery was
not all that heroic, and spent a whole bunch of time going round them… whilst
getting shot by skinks. Not sure that was any more heroic in the end. Finally
there was but the Dragon Slayer left, and in what one assumes was a suitably
slow motion action montage he declared a charge on a skink cohort, who casually
shot him dead.

The
Gyrocopter fried some skink skirmishers, and was badly wounded by a mixture of
poison and Tetto’ekko magic goodness. Deciding to pick some points up, he went
on a bombing run on the remaining two skinks in the unit… but the pilot,
clearly having a bad day, dropped the bomb at his feet, and died.

With the
warmachines silenced and the Slayer points all but in the bag, the mighty Frog,
oldest of the old skool Slann, unleashed some awesome DwellersFu upon the Dwarf
Lord and his unit. The Lord and some 9 Ironbreakers were dragged (one assumes
grumbling appropriately) to their doom. At this point there was nothing left to
really threaten me, and the Temple Guard launched themselves on the
Ironbreakers, smashing them apart in a round, running them down before
assisting the Vet in his combat with the IronDrakes and thunderers.

Thus was
the plan of Old Ones protected, and thus was the Slann’s deed recorded in the
Book of Grudges (an actual book and all).

The weird things you see at SCGT....

Game
2

Contrary
to my closely held views on facing Dwarfs, I normally relish the idea of
playing vs Ogres. Avoid them a bit, shoot them a lot, purple sun and death
snipe away… just a glorious day in the office really.

Except
some muppet had decided to bring Life magic over Death to this event.

It is a
truth seemingly universally accepted (and no less wrong for its popularity)
that having battle for the pass if you have a cannon or two is the obvious
thing to do.

Donal,
one of the lovely Angel wargammers from London, subscribed to this point of
view. Rocking

A Beasts
Slaughtermaster, a BSB (with MR3), a Butcher (with the Hellheart :( ), some
Guts, two Ogre Darts, Maneaters, Leadbelchers, 2 kitties, a Gorger and 2 Ironblasters
Donal pseudo board edged the bulk of his army whilst the chaffier elements took
the flanks, waiting for his cannons to pick up some points whilst I made my way
to him. The leadbelchers established a salient by moving into a building half
way down the battlefield, looking to belch, well, lead, on me as I came at him.
As ever, I deployed on the deployment line, and was helped out by Tetto’s
vanguarding skillz in eating up the distance.

Things
did not start off all that well. Going first, Donal proceeded to kill the Old
Blood and one of the Scar Vets with cannons. Annoying as this was, I knew this
was always likely to happen. I kept pushing up. Skinks unloaded into the
leadbelcher building, eventually seeing them off. Some comet fun started wreaking
havoc on the Maneaters and the gutstar. Ever onwards I pressed. The flanking
units clashed, my left flank slowly crumbled as it tried to take out some Ogre
darts, embarking on a series of very long range “tactical retreats” out of the
fight, eventually taking them down.

Then
came the fateful turn. A comet was hovering over the Guts and Maneaters. Their
failed charges left them basically where they were. I was worried that my
remaining Scar vet had a very short life expectancy – he had survived taking
just one wound from the cannons the previous turn, and I did not expect him to
survive another. I felt that he would be key in swinging the ensuing combats,
and, thinking I would have a chance to heal him in the relative safety of
combat, I thought to risk the comet’s collateral damage when it eventually came
down. So I charged.

And
moved Tetto closer to make sure would be in range for any buffs if I wanted to
bubble them to help with my shooting as well.

Cue the
magic phase.

And the
Hellheart.

This
abomination of a magic item hit the Slann, Tett and the Priest.

Slann… cascaded.
And died.

Tett…
cascaded. And died.

Priest…
cascaded. And survived… yay.

The
explosions and comet ravaged the Temple Guard, leaving but a handful to fight
the might of the Gutstar.

I was
about the quit the game. I was not in the greatest of moods, it must be said (not
Donal’s fault, he is lovely). In a win-loss system a Loss is damning. But
then I remembered the importance of secret missions and decided to play it out.

And then
a Hero was born.

A story
to be repeated to every generation of spawnings, until the facts get distorted
in their retelling to encompass nothing but the barest traces of reality.

The
Temple Guard died mauling the remaining Guts in the unit. And then the one
wound Scar Vet went to town. Hewing apart the Gut champion and then the
Butcher, his epicness was less in what he killed, and more in his stubborn
refusal to die (on an aside, after the first couple of rounds of this this was
annoying – if he died I could bring a lot of weight of fire to bear on the
unit… which now consisted of nothing but the Slaughtermaster and BSB – but such
realities takes away from the scar vet’s awesomeness). The mighty Razordon
battled a Sabertusk to death… An ironblaster decided to try and kill the mighty
comp point and promptly blew up. Somehow, as we got to the final turn (and I
remembered to put a unit of skinks in a building) the skink shooting and
misfiring warmachines had left Donal with nothing but the Slaughtermaster, the
BSB, one Ironblaster and a Gorger left. Despite the Hellheart killing around
1000pts worth of stuff, I had snuck a win… but 142 points.

I
wouldn’t be lying if I said neither of us could be believe it when we added
everything up.

It is
hard to describe the emotional journey of this game.

Best Terrain Winner. Yes, there is actual water flowing there....

Game 3

Onto the
third game of the day, and time to fell another Angel (as in, the club in
London – as nice as Ming is (and it’s an impressive amount of niceness) I am
not sure he qualifies as a celestial being… though come to think of it… maybe
he is).

Ming
(insert “The Merciless” joke here if you are less original than I am in the
humour stakes) was rocking his simply stunning Bretonnian army. Not sure what
exactly was in it, other than a lot of lances (some realm, some errant, some
grail), a couple of knight darts, some pegs, some mounted yeomen, three fighty characters,
a couple of wizardy ladies and, of course, a couple of Trebs.

Basically,
despite all the piety and the potentially divinely-ordained general, there was
an ungodly amount of stuff on his side of the table.

Oh, he
chose Battle for the Pass, because everyone else did, so why not?

Now,
there is something I have said for a very long time about Bretts vs Lizardmen.
Something I repeat often and loudly, mainly because Jack Armstrong agrees with
me, and as such it must be right. When facing your everyday Lizards, a
Brettonian player is being foolish (or an idiot, depending on how charitable
you are feeling) if they deploy in Lance formation. Long units that can be
railroaded easily, who have a narrow frontage easily avoided, is asking for
trouble against a mobile skirmishing army when you understand you don’t need
the Lance to beat almost every unit in the Lizardmen book.

Now, as
it happens, Lance formation is decent against me. As I will cover at a future
date, I stopped playing Lizards like Lizards a little while ago, and tend to be
hyper aggressive. With this list in particular, I try to bully the matchups I
can with the Temple Guard, so if you can decimate them, you are in for good
times.

Ming
wasn’t to know this, however.

He
deployed with a heavy weighting to his right flank, Megalance on the centre,
the baby lances to the right of this. What he did not see, however, is that his
beautiful statue of the lady of the lake (or perhaps a strange women lying in a pond distributing swords as a basis for a system
of government…) prevented any wheeling by the Megalance to the left. This,
combined with the fact I knew he was going to give me first turn, allowed me to
enact a plan.

The Bane of Ming

Tetto
did his thang and allowed the Temple Guard (loaded up with characters) and two
Cohorts, to vanguard full steam ahead. Both Chameleon units scouted
aggressively – one to ever so bravely sacrifice themselves to block the Megalance,
the other to crawl through a gap I had noticed and pick on Trebs. This scouting
also prevented his Pegs from vanguarding forward and interfering with The Plan.

As
expected, Ming dutifully prayed to the aforementioned watery tart, and I took
the opportunity to aggressive push forward, the skinks in range attacking
clearing up the Yeoman. Dwellers dutifully drew out a scroll. Come Ming’s first
turn the Temple Guard were 20” forward from their starting position, safe from
the Megalance, whose only option was to charge in a straight ahead into the
chameleons and either sit there, with the Temple Guard eyeing up their flank,
or overrun… which, due to the length of the unit, was going to end up in the
same result. Furthermore, all this shenanigans meant that his other lances had
no option but to move straight ahead as well, taking them out of the early/mid
game.

Ming remains rather positive as things get tricky...

He
understandably threw away his Pegs to save the main lance. Ming’s second scroll
was burnt, and Tett started juggling
comets, mostly to look cool – comets are unlikely to do all that much vs Brett
lances really. Annoyingly, Bretts are hard to catch… until, that is, his large
Errant lance, chose an inopportune time
to fail a march test with the Temple Guard salivating next to them, and were
promptly butchered.

Big fat
frogs are inherently lazy, shockingly enough. The thought of trying to chase
down the Megalance as it sped away seemed like a lot of trouble, so I Dwellered
it. My epic skills meant I got the lvl4 and a Paladin. And a bunch of the unit.
#Skillz

Filled
with righteous rage, the Grail Knight unit charged… a building with 10 skinks
in… And promptly failed to kill them all. Come to think of it… I have a
suspicion that a holy warrior may have died in that combat. Toying with his
food like the badly brought up skink he is, Tetto Windblasted the knights back
on onto the building. Because why not?

The Old
Blood, and a Scar Vet (having survived a
giant rock to the face), did not approve of such flippant toying with meals,
and decided to deal with the grail knights by using old fashioned great
weapons.

Meanwhile,
on my right flank, 5 Knights epically failed to kill a Razordon, who escaped
and the knights were dealt with by those masters of Knight-Slaying… a Skink
Cohort.

The
Megalance, seeing that the day was lost, turned around and prepared for a
final, glorious charge. And were eaten by the Temple Guard.

All in
all, a sobering day for knights of Spamalot.

A highly
enjoyable game against a true gent of an opponent, who got my Best Sports vote
– and given how I enjoyed playing all 6 of my opponents, this is high praise
indeed.

Day one was
over, cue a night involving a lot of cider, KFC and X-wing vs Mr Curry… All in
all, a Good Day.

Game 4

Day two
saw me drawn against none other than The Foot of Gork, the reigning, defending,
South Coast Grand Tournament Champion, the lovable giant that is Mr Andi Avery
himself.

O&G.
With 15 Trolls.

Where
the hell had I left my Death Magic?!

This was
a cool list – led by Gorbad Ironclaw and a lvl4 Orc Shaman, the core was some
Goblin units of some type or other. The Special was Trolls. The Rare was Double
Arachnarok.

This was
going to be a problem.

With
Life and Heavens buffs the Temple Guard can smash Troll units, but you need
magic to work for it to not get very messy.

Andi
chose Meeting Engagement, and, true to form, I deployed far more aggressively than
I should have – with skinks along the deployment line, and the Temple Guard
(once again with characters) anchoring the right flank. Andi went for central
symmetrical approach, Trolls in the centre, goblins behind, big spiders on the
flanks, with Gorbad floating around in wolf riders making use of his 18”
leadership and BSB bubble.

Prudence
would dictate a much deeper deployment to weaken the troll units before they
got to me, but that meant getting stuck in the corner, and no one puts Raffy in
the corner. That, and I was scared of Foot – this game needed combat – though,
upon looking at Gorbad’s rules, it was also apparent I needed to avoid him big
time, that boy is scary.

An epic
deployment error allowed the big giant spider on my right flank a turn one
charge on a Razordon – I had been meaning to vanguard it out of sight, but
forgot (not the last thing I would forget this game). Having made the error I
should have fled off the board, but I hoped to get a round through, and held.
End result was giant spider next to (and almost behind) the Temple Guard.

Spiders... Everywhere!

Elsewhere
things started off well enough – skinks bringing down the odd troll, and I let
Andi do some magic disco Hand of Gork-ing of his trolls as he shifted the
weight of this attack to my right flank. I peeled off the Old Blood to block
the creepy spider, and prepared for the ensuing carnage. A Skink Cohort
advanced in front of the Temple Guard – hoping to bring down a troll or so
before dying. I deliberately gave them a decent overrun opportunity into the
Temple Guard to make it enticing – I also let on a longish charge on to them
from the other Troll unit. Truth be told, I wanted both Troll units to hit me
at the same time. I would not result in that many extra attacks, given their
wide frontage, and I figured in the grind, with one decent magic phase I had a
decent chance of breaking both units (risky play, but that’s how I like it).

As it
happened, only the overrunning trolls made it in.

In my
turn the winds of magic blew strong, and Andi failed to dispel my two dice
Throne… Cue forcing through a magic phase that resulted in a toughness 8 Temple
Guard unit, with 4+ Regen and some Heavens spells to top things off. The end
result is that I lost two Temple Guard, and ravaged, and chased down, the Trolls.

Andi’s
spider of doom then pounced on the now out of bsb bubble Old Blood, and
following some epic fluffing of dice on my part the giant arachnid chased the
mighty Old Blood down… and into the flank of Tetto’s unit and accompanying
Skink Priest.

Operation
“save the Priests” then commenced.

My
original plan was to bring the Temple Guard back to tackle the spider. This was
risky, as it would allow Gorbad to charge the unit, and maybe even a long range
goblin charge into the rear to hold things up. I felt like taking that risk –
it would only take a round of bad dice by Gorbad to make him lose combat on the
static, and a round of decent Life Magic buffs would all but guarantee this…
But it was risky, and I decided against it. A mistake I think.

Instead
the Scar Vets peeled off, one to try to rescue the priests, the other to block
the second advancing spider (who was brought down by mass poison before making
it into combat. Mass pumping of Life and Heavens buffs onto Tetto’s unit slowed
their death rate considerably (you have to love T6 skinks), and allowed the Vet
to get in. I think the unit eventually died, at which point the vet went
apocalyptic with rage and slew the many-legged fiend. Andi was working to bring
the other Troll unit into combat, but their lack of musician slowed this down.
I had to make the call on engaging. Lacking Vets in the Temple Guard unit I
didn’t fancy it – I would REALLY need Life magic to work to come out on top of
that, and it seemed like a big risk. Instead I tried to pick on the goblins. A
barrage of fanatics reaped a heavy toll, but the Goblins were successfully
broken… though I think only one unit was caught.

The
biggest mistake of my game came in my final turn. When it looked like not much
would happen, Andi’s lvl4 and accompanying goblins failed animosity, and due to
Gorbad’s rules charged the Temple Guard. Beaten off like the stupid mushrooms
they are, I failed to catch them by 1 inch. In my turn they were 1 inch in
front of me, all I had to do was charge. I had +3 on the dice to catch them. A
very long flee may even have taken them off the board….

At this
point, tired, hung over and hungry, I got distracted by a conversation amongst
the spectators of our game on Nasty Skulkers (who had almost, but not quite,
killing blow’ed a Scar Vet). Returning to the game, with not much apparently
on, I moved on to the magic phase for one last Dwellers attempt on the mage…
forgetting to charge.

Idiot.

In the
end, with secret missions etc, it was a Draw – I definitely didn’t deserve to
win, given all the mistakes, but on the top tables is gutting – especially
given the last turn charge fiasco. I thought it took me out of a podium finish,
and this allowed me to relax going into the final two games.

Game 5

After
lunch and feeling a lot more human, I had the pleasure of facing the mighty
Elven hordes of Alex.

A
massive (no other word for it) Silver Helm bus, supported by a Prince, a lvl4
(with Dwellers, of course) a BSB, a lvl2 on Metal and another Noble, supported
by two Reaver units, two eagles, a Noble on Eagle and two Frostheart Phoenixes.

Fast
(and, as it happens, beautiful).

And
packing dwellers.

Gulp.

Making
what I think was a big mistake, he chose Battle for the Pass. Can’t blame him –
everyone was doing it. But this meant that, if I wanted, there was always going
to be a turn when I was safe from dwellers.

We then
proceeded to have what has to be described as the most Mathematical deployment
phase of all time. Going front and centre with his bus, and spreading out his
army to make sure no pesky chameleons came up behind him, I spent a LOT of time
working out where it would be safe for my Slann to hang out. Not only this, but
he had to be safe whilst being in position to enact The Plan. I spread all my
characters out. With no ranged magical damage to bring to the fight, my
characters did not even need to be in units. I had two important weapons to
bring to bear here.

Firstly
I had scouts, which allowed me to block off the Helms and ensure that, if he
went first, he would only be able to advance the unit 12” before his magic
phase. I also ensured that their angle meant that he would not be able to see
me anyway, and require a reform in the following turn.

My uber
secret weapon, however, was the Arcane Vassal rule. The plan was to vanguard
the sacrificial priest up into within 23” of him and 6 dice monkey for the
mighty win. Simple and effective, right?

Except I
forgot to vanguard.

Sigh. I
am truly epic sometimes.

Not all
was lost however. I won first turn. The plan was still in play. One chameleon
unit moved right up to the bus, limiting its movement and direction should the
plan fail and probably get me another turn to try.

The
other chameleon unit went into a ninja conga formation, the front of it just
within 12” of the bus, the rear within 12” of the Priest. Up he hopped.

Some
vague movement, and on to the magic phase. Throne was allowed through, Alex not
seeing his impending doom arriving. Cue 6 dice DwellersFu, irresistible, dead
Dwellers mage, Dead BSB (and by implication the Banner of the World Dragon) and
a ravaged unit.

I know Dwellers

He who
Dwellers first, right?

Now,
here I think Alex threw it away. He still had a unit that could cause serious
hurt, as well as dual frosthearts and eagles and an eagle noble. I do think if
he had gone all out for the win he stood a chance of pulling it back.
Unfortunately for him I think he thought the game was up, at which point he
turned the unit around and dashed back to his deployment zone with the bus and
all the fliers – his secret mission was clearly to capture his deployment zone.

Unfortunately
mine was to get his… so the game descended into me rushing at his backlines,
throwing comets at him - which his uber fast army avoided. In the final turns
Tetto went all Sith on his lines and caused carnage with Chain Lighting. At
this point I knew the game was won, and allowed him a multi charge into the
Temple Guard on the final turn – mainly because I knew there was no risk, and
also because a game without ANY combat is frankly silly.

A game
against a great opponent ruined by Dwellers – though as I said, it probably
didn’t need to be… and 5 characters in one unit is asking for trouble.

Was
great to finally play Marcus – one of the too long list of people I spend a lot
of time with at events and had yet to play.

He had a
Flyrant-led Ogre list, backed up with a Firebelly, a BSB and then Guts, a
couple of Ogre Darts, Poison Sniper Maneaters, two units of Yhettees (I quite
like these guys!), a Gorger and the requisite double IronBlaster and a couple
of cats.

Marcus,
of course, chose Battle for the Pass. Because why not. Unlike Donal, however,
Marcus was coming for me. And I wasn’t about to run away. Following an
ineffectual first turn by Marcus, Tetto, remembering his fate last time he had
encountered Ogres, let fly with a mighty Thunderbolt on the Flyrant, severely
wounding him. This allowed the scores of skinks I had sent forward to headhunt
to bring down the overly bold Ogre and his carpet, despite his fancy Look Out
Sirs, armour saves and ward. Thus was the army beheaded, and my secret mission
accomplished.

Now I
was feeling better about life.

I
managed to clear out most of his supporting units with skink shooting, and sacrificed
some of the mighty cohorts to buy time. There followed several grinding battles
between the Temple Guard and the Gutstar and Maneaters. Failing to catch the
fleeing Ogres, the Old Blood was tasked with hunting down, holding up and
grinding the Guts.

The
Temple Guard and accompanying vets (I think eventually lost one to the rather
ineffectual Ironblasters) surged forward to close down points, whilst the
skinks focused on tackling the Gorger arriving behind them, and some enveloping
Ogre darts.

It was a
long and bloody chase, but a comfortable one. With magical dominance (I worked
out early on he did not have the Hellheart) and the Tyrant dead, there was
little risk in any of the combats. Exposing his general so early on had been a
costly mistake.

Marcus,
needless to say, was a total gent to play, and it was a good way to end the
weekend.

6 games,
5 wins, 1 draw, 6 secret missions – good result in the end. I didn’t think I
was going to end up remotely close to the podium, but, once again I was wrong,
and the shiny third place trophy was mine (as was Best Lizardmen following a
bit of a horror show for Jack on table 1 last game).

Massive
congratulations to Sedge for winning it – top man, top player (though I think
he should pay for my tournament tickets, seems whenever we are in the same room
he wins an event), and walking proof that licking vodka jelly from a man’s
beard on the Saturday night does not mean you can’t win a 180+ player event on
the Sunday…

I liked
the comp pack – don’t think it was “fair” across armies, but that is not
something the guys really go for, and it did create a lot of diversity in lists
(for most races at least). Way too much Battle for the Pass was played, but
that’s not the organisers fault, and when not playing vs a gunline, it doesn’t
actually lead to boring games, just slightly awkward ones at times.

A Battleline - because I had forgotten what they looked like... And yes, those are Phoenixes :)

Overall
a fantastic time at the event. Once again thanks to all my opponents, to Dan,
Wayne and Russ for putting on a top event, and for the various helpers who
helped with the running of things. The biggest highlight of such a big event
continues to be meeting so many people – though it does mean you completely
miss people who are there, such is the crowd.

Not sure
when my next event is, but I know I am already looking forward to SCGT next
year!

In the
meantime… I have been playing around
with Ogres to see if can get them to work in the modern meta, and been
pondering if I can get VC to work (anything to avoid writing about Dwarfs
really…). Will let you know how that works out.

About Me

Who am I? Well, that’s deep!
In short, a half Brazilian, half British Warhammer tournament player with an opinion on pretty much everything!
Welcome to RaffazzaTime – a blog predominantly focused on my take on my hobby and the Warhammer tournament scene in the UK.
I have been in and around the hobby since 1994 – with a big break in the early 2000s. Have actively played Warhammer, 40k, Bloodbowl, Necromunda, Mordheim, Epic, Battlefleet Gothic and even some GorkaMorka at various times. Been active in the UK WFB tournament scene since the release of 8th edition.
This blog will be my ramblings on the game, tournaments, lists, and maybe even some introspective soul-searching ;)

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